Monday, October 31, 2011

So I have to thank The Lonely Island for their music video, I'm On A Boat. If I never saw it I would have never decided to be T-Pain on Halloween. It came together last week, I found an I Am T-Pain microphone that auto-tunes your voice and you can make auto-tune audio files... I wasn't spending $35 on a big plastic microphone just to sell a Halloween costume.

I think it may be my best costume for a while; whenever I do a great costume I always end up being the black version of something. A few years ago I was Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, my name's Patrick Barker, but I was only recognized as 'Black' American Psycho (which is fine, I guess.) A few years later, I was emo... kinda hard to pull off with hair like mine.

I made this Demotivator myself...

So when I was giving out candy four black kids thought I was Flava Flav... and a white kid knew I was T-Pain. HE got extra candy, I gave the kids that laughed tootsie rolls.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Batman's back in a big way this month. Earlier this month the animated adaption of Batman: Year One was released on DVD and blu-ray. The movie features the voices of Bryan Cranston and Benjamin McKenzie as Lt. Gordon and Bruce Wayne as Batman learned the ropes in Gotham City.

Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill return as Batman and the Joker in Batman: Arkham City. Picking up some time after the events of Batman Arkham Asylum, Dr. Hugo Strange has turned a portion of Gotham City into a prison; housing most, if not all of Batman's villains. Batman and Catwoman are trapped inside Arkham City trying to find out what Strange's plan is, and what the Joker has to do with it. So far I've already fought Ra's al Ghul, Mr. Freeze and Solomon Grundy, not to mention countless goons working for the Penguin, Two-Face and The Joker.

Side quests abound, including searches for Deadshot, Victor Zsasz, and some very interesting puzzles devised by The Riddler. In Arkham Asylum, The Riddler never appears, but antagonizes Batman throughout. Now he's devised some SAW-esque traps for the Batman to solve in order to save innocent lives.

Besides the main story there are also unlockable challenge maps for Batman and Catwoman and there is DLC coming soon that will feature Robin and Nightwing in there own challenge maps. Batman: Arkham City is now available for PS3 and Xbox 360

Thursday, October 20, 2011

The fall is a great time if you love video games. Batman: Arkham City was just released on Tuesday and there are a few big titles coming out in a few weeks. Two weeks from now, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception comes out for the PS3. Uncharted took the action platformer originated by Tomb Raider and gave it a much needed overhaul. Combining combat elements, such as cover-based 3rd-person shooting like in Gears of War with puzzle platforming from games like Prince of Persia made for a great experience. What sets the Uncharted series apart from other games is it's style, which pays tribute to the great adventure movies of old as well as appropriating elements from the Indiana Jones series and other series like it. The protagonist, Nathan Drake, is a treasure hunter who is a possible descendant of Sir Francis Drake. His attitude is not unlike Indiana Jones or Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Serenity, he cracks wise, and kicks ass in exotic locales.

Leading up to the release of Uncharted 3 Sony has been releasing trailers featuring Henry Jones Jr. himself, Harrison Ford. This video shows him sitting down for a Japanese commercial for Uncharted 3 and shows him taking the game for a spin. Whether he's actually playing or not is debatable but you cannot deny how cool it is to have the protagonist of arguably one of the best adventure movies of all time playing a video game that pays homage to the his character.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

So Halloween is right around the corner... I've been trying to decide what I'll be. Right now, it's a toss-up between Office Predator (Predator in dress-casual attire) or a Black Lantern version of myself. While I decide on that I've decided to compile a playlist of movies/tv that is apropos for the season:

Monday, October 17, 2011

Christmas is coming quickly, and if I have to choose between an adorable action comedy collecting some of the best people in film-making together in one place and a remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I'm going to go with The Adventures of Tintin. Tintin is directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson, and written by Stephen Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. You have the director of Saving Private Ryan and Raiders of the Lost Ark producing a 3D epic alongside the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy; a movie written by the executive producer of Doctor Who, the director of Shaun of the Dead, and the director of Attack the Block.

That's just the production staff, but just look at the cast assemble by what can only be described as a Dream Team: You've got Jamie Bell from King Kong playing Tintin, and Andy Serkis from Rise of the Planet of the Apes as Captain Haddock. Then you have Simon Pegg and Nick Frost from Hot Fuzz, James Bond himself Daniel Craig, and a slew of character actors. This movie is shaping up to be a big hit. With the talent involved, the source material, and the technology available (James Cameron's 3D camera) this is shaping up to be the blockbuster of the holiday season. Take a look at the new trailer.

The Avengers movie is coming out next May, and last Tuesday the first official trailer for the movie was released featuring clips of Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Iron Man in action. I have tried my best to keep myself spoiler-free, but watching the trailer definitely excites me, so I'm going to have to show some serious restraint. Plus the fact that Joss Whedon, the king of the nerd, is directing it... May can't get here fast enough. Enjoy.

I just finished the single player portion of Portal 2 on Steam. I had't played a Valve game since Left 4 Dead, and I never got around to playing Portal until I saw that it was free to play on Steam. I was pleasantly surprised by the original, and when I had the money and the time to play it I decided to buy Portal 2. I happened to buy it the weekend the newest DLC, Peer Review, was released and the price dropped to $14. That's a deal to me.
I thoroughly loved the single player campaign which balanced the incredibly aggravating puzzles with some laugh out loud hilarious dialogue. JK Simmons and Stephen Merchant had great delivery, Merchant especially.

One of the reasons I was interested in trying the Portal games was a recently released short Portal: No Escape. I think if any video game would make a good movie, it would definitely be portal

Friday, October 7, 2011

Roller Derby is back in Indianapolis this weekend. Friday thru Sunday Indy is playing host for the Midwest Regional Championships for the WFTDA (flat-track derby.) Indy's own Naptown Roller Girls are in the tournament and have a good chance to make it all the way to the championship game on Sunday.
Come on down to the Convention Center this weekend to catch all the action, the merch, and the girl on girl on rollerskate contact.

This weekend I went on a try to Lafayette, IN to a massive cornfield maze. Exploration Aches featured Halloween themed mazes like a spider web, a tombstone, and my favorite the horsemen an jack o'lantern. The maze had an underlining quest, featuing 25 hidden points throughout the mazes. The sun set around 7:45/8ish so we had to navigate in the dark, thankfully I had my trusty Maglite (I like to call it the Rodney King Special.)
Each spot had a hole-puncher and for each punch you were rewarded with a coupon for 25 different places in West Lafayette including Purdue's bookstore. Sure I live in Indy, but I'm a completist. Me and a few friends were able to find every destination in the maze in about 4 hours. www.explorationacres.com